


Don't Take Your Guns To Town

by orphan_account



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: And these people are going to do the best they can to hold each other togeather in spite of that, Everything is Complicated, F/M, Flashbackception, Flashbacks, Future Fic, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Moving on is hard, Navel-Gazing, Past Sexual Assault, People saying that they are okay, Post-Game(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Revenge, Vulpes Inculta is a warning unto himself, When in fact they are very not okay, fixing people and cities isn't as easy as the narritive might make it look at first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4100005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After seven long years Courier Six finds her way back to the Mojave wasteland</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Johnny Cash song of the same name. More warnings will be added as we go, but you can expect general Legion scumminess and attitudes to women in the future. Unbeta'd for now, and all mistakes are my own.

**Eight years ago** :

The sun hung red and dusty in the sky as it rose over the cliffs on the far side of the Colorado River. Arizona, Boone supposed, the word leaving a sharp bitter taste like battery acid in his mouth. Everything from here to Texas. Legion Land, all of it. Below them Cottonwood Cove sprawled, muddy and brown, in the valley below. If one looked through their scope they could easily make out the shapes of corpses and skeletons nailed to crosses with crows picking at them. Boone didn't look through his scope. Knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from following through.

Decided to relay this sentiment to his companion. “You near done? I don’t like to be this close to the legion unless I am shooting holes in them."

“Please don’t," she said, voice slightly muffled through the bobby pins she was holding in her mouth, “We got enough problems now without Caesar sending troops to hunt us down.” She had a large lockbox on her lap, and had spent the last fifteen minutes trying to finesse it’s complicated lock open. She jimmied the small screwdriver in the keyhole further, continuing “Look, I hate the Legion too. You didn’t see Nipton. It was… it was not good. There is a reckoning coming for all of them, none the least of which is Vulpes Inculta.”

She got a faraway look then. Her normally sea glass green eyes got that white fire in them. Boone liked that fire. Meant she still remembered what was important, even if she spent inordinate amounts of time fooling around and doing favours for people. She looked less like the overgrown teenager that staged an invasion of his sniper post, and his peace of mind, all those months back, and more like the queen of New Vegas that she kept telling them she was going to be. He thought she and Arcade were fools for not just siding with NCR or even the House and being done with it, but there was no telling her otherwise.

The lockbox opened with a pop. “Bingo!” she grinned, lifting the lid.

Inside sat the best looking sniper rifle Boone had ever seen in his life. Chinese in make, some carbon fiber as opposed to pure metal, well bored barrel. The kind of piece a sniper dreams of.

“How offended would you be if I called dibs?” Six’s voice, sounding unusually high and strained, intruded on his reverence.

He looked at her. She gave him a guilty grin back.

“You ain’t”

“C’mon, Boone” She dragged the vowels of his name out. “I'm getting real good with guns. I miss next to nothing with the trail carbine now.”

“Yeah, because you pop out in front of your target and shoot them at point blank range. I have met more stealthy herds of Brahmin,” he slung the Gobi rifle over his back and started to head back up the trail. Even in the morning light he could see the golden glitter of Vegas in the distance.

There was a clamour of Six hurriedly packing up her stuff to follow him. As she caught up she mimed being stabbed in the heart, “Rudeness Boone. You _wound_ me Boone. Okay, well what if I let _you_ have the trail carbine and I took this one”

“Nope.”

“Okay, what about the trail carbine and a new hunting rifle?”

“Nope”

“Okay, well what about an anti-materiel rifle with incendiary ammo?”

Boone stopped short to look at her, “When did you get an anti-materiel rifle?”

Six turned an attractive shade of pink, “I bought it off the Brotherhood when I was down there with Veronica. I was planning to take to the Gun Runner and seeing if they could tune it up.”

“Where you planning to tell me about before or after you claimed it as your primary weapon?”

"Okay, I see how it might _look_ like I am hoarding all the good rifles for myself but you know that—hey Boone, wait up!”

**2289:**

The sun was rising over Cottonwood Cove. Boone’s shift was done for another night.

He picked up his pack off the floor of the Sniper’s nest with a grimace. His shoulder was paining him this week. Another old war wound. Down below he saw the day sniper, a skinny Asian boy from Primm, making his way up the hillside to the overlook. Beyond him The Cove was stood still and serene in the morning light. The green flag of the Mojave Federation hung listless from the flagpole in the middle of the quad. Past the Colorado River, the shores of Arizona stood empty. Good. Boone liked that he could keep an eye on it from here.

Still, time to go home. There was time to work his way well into a bottle of whiskey before sleep overtook him. He slung a well worn anti-materiel rifle over shoulder set off down into the valley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future chapters will hopefully be longer. Fun Fact: In my own game, even thought I usually had Boone as my companion, I held on to all the good rifles like I was Gollum with the ring.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate titles for this work could have been, "A Love Story Told in Guns" and "Oh, gods. Everyone is so damaged."

**2289** :

The day was warming up fast and any mist clinging down by shore where Boone’s cabin stood was quickly burning away in the Nevada sun. It was going to be a hot summer. Folk in town were already worried about rainfall levels, and the meagre crops blowing away. It was a twisted thing, that one of the few places untouched by the bombs and radiation was a goddamn desert were nothing much grew anyway.

He noticed the daytime sniper picking his way over the hillside towards him. Boone had never had much to do with Simon Biak. A green boy of 15, Chinese or Korean or something. He looked hardly study enough shoot a rifle, skinny limbs sticking out of old olive fatigues, and red ball cap perched on his head. Boone bought food and supplies from the Biak's store, but rarely interacted with the boy himself, except for a curt nod as they passed each other.

“Mister Boone, I need to talk to you,” Simon said, slightly out of breath as he caught up to Boone. “A stranger came in on the boat last night, after we switched shifts. They came to the store looking for .308s. We don’t carry much ammo, and I use mostly .40-70's myself anyway,” He paused patting the stock of his own study carbine, “We thought that maybe cause you had that other beat up rifle, you might have some extra?”

Boone thought about his old NCR 1st recon weapon. It been falling apart for years, yet he hadn't found it in him to part with it yet. “Yeah. I probably have a few boxes. Where this guy?”

Simon shuffled nervously from foot to foot, “Well, that's other thing.”

Warning air raid sirens went off in Boone’s head, “Yeah?”

“He is actually a she, and when she found out about you, she said she'd wait at your house for you. I told her It'd be locked tight but she said that wouldn't matter. And Boone, she had a beret just like yours! Is she first recon?” Simon finished excited.

Boone wasn't listening, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and his adrenaline pick up.  He had to get to his house.

It couldn't be her.

It couldn't be anyone else.

He set off directly for home with long deliberate strides. Simon watched the older sniper go, a bit dumbfounded. 

Boone’s house was a small ramshackle cottage, a relic of the old pre-war resort. It was all cracked lead-pane windows, and grey boards covered in cracked robin’s egg blue paint, and a rusty screen door.

Boone opened the screen door, hinges creakingly announcing his entrance. The thick pine door behind it he opened just as easily, even though he knew he left it locked last night.

The entryway wass undisturbed. No sounds. No smells.

By the counter in the kitchen, a discarded pair of gecko hide boots. On the counter, one revolver, ivory handled with a small club carved into it. One 9mm pistol, shiny nickel with ivy detailing, and the portrait of some dead saint on the pearl grips. She always said if she had kids, she’d name them Lucky and Maria, after her handguns.

And then beside them, her real baby, the long brown barrel of the Gobi Campaign rifle. Looking just as well kept as the day they pulled it out that lockbox.

He turned the corner. She was sat on his busted old couch, nursing a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla, looking like she'd never left, not for one day.  

And she smiled and she said, “Hi Boone.”

And he said “You’re not dead-" and he is not sure if it’s a question or a statement.

She looks largely the same. Brown hair cut at the chin, and browned skin. The tops of her shoulders and thighs, her cheeks and nose, are extra tanned and dusted with freckles. And green, green, green eyes. She is wearing brown trousers, and a loosely cropped shirt made out of what appeared to be some yellow pre-war flag. A heavy black gecko hide coat was crumpled on the couch beside her.

She wrinkled her nose as a grin broke out over her face. “No, I ain’t dead yet. Though trust me, no one is more surprised about that fact than my own self.”

It was weird. It was damned weird to see her laughing and sitting there like nothing ever changed. 

“Oh Boone, stop looking at me like that, you are making nervous.” She gestured to the other end the couch, but Boone shook his head, opting for one of the chairs across from her.

“So Cottonwood Cove? I didn't take you for a beach front retirement kind of guy.”

“It’s good enough. Got a job. Got an eye on the east.”

She smiled so sadly at him. “Aren't we a pair?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She stretched out on the couch. “I hope you don’t mind me staying here for a day or two?”

“No, it’s fine. You moving on West?”

“I am. Gods, it been so long since I have seen Vegas. I have heard good things about the new Mojave while I was on the road. I was worried when I left whether I was doing the right thing” she paused then and Boone felt something funny growing in stomach. She looked out the window, “Well, it’s seemed to work out alright. I am excited to meet Mr. Prime Minister.”

Boone snorted, “He's gonna give you an earful.”

“Ah, he's always been all fuss. ‘Sides I’ve got lots information he might been interested in. It’s been a long road. You wouldn't believe the things I have seen. Did you know there really _is_ a house in New Orleans called The Rising Sun? It’s just the old Cabildo turned into a brothel though,” there was a clink as she popped the cap off another Sunset Sarsaparilla, “It’s basically Venice now. Levies been broke a long time now. Lots of witchcraft and voodoo clashing with these neo-Christian cults. And in Texas they found oil again, so you got a lot frontier towns popping up. I met a nice young doctor from Washington DC in Austin. Said that the Eastern seaboard's is still pretty bombed out.”

A large swig of Sarsaparilla, "But it’s good to be on this side of the river again”. She looked back at him, “How have you been Boone?”

“I've been okay”

That sad, wry smile again “Yeah, I have been... I am okay too.”

There was a long silence after that. The desert sun was fully pouring in the windows now, dust dancing in the sunbeams. Boone’s cottage which he had always felt suited him fine, suddenly felt so small. This is a man with no family, it said. This is a man who avoids seeing friends, who has no hobbies except shooting things before they even knew he was there, and drinking too much to remember every girl he every lost.

Too small for Six. He had been wrong earlier, she did look different. She had a firmness about the jaw, and a weariness about her eyes, and she sat up straight now, no longer rounded her shoulder’s and stooped like she was self-conscious about her height and long gangly limbs.

She cleared her throat. “So I guess I can take the couch, you probably want to get some sleep in.”

“You can have the bed."

She rolled her eyes and gave him a half smile, “We could always put out bedrolls on the floor like old times,” She chuckled.

So they do. It feels silly and childish, and Boone has half a mind to just insist she use his bed. But he is a little afraid if he lets her out of his sight she will just disappear again, and Boone will be alone, and no one will look at him like he matters. It’s stupid because he has spent years pushing people away, making himself part of the background noise in this town. So they lay on the floor of his living room like they are a couple of kids, elbows bumping into each other, listening to sounds of people out on the river.

He looks at the ceiling, cause he can’t look at her and asks “What about Arizona, and New Mexico?”

She pulled her wool blanket up to her chin, not looking at him either “What about it?”

“You were all over, what is in Arizona now?”

She closed her eyes and her face stretched into a bitter smile, “Now? The bodies of dead legionaries”

She fell asleep after that but Boone didn't. Not for a long time after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Biaks are Korean, and the pre-war flag is New Mexico's. The problem with Boone's mostly being your POV character is that he is uncultured swine. I love him, but he is kind of a basic bitch unlike Arcade who can exposition, and provide background knowledge all day


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This chapter turned out way longer than I thought I would. Still very unbeta'd. Also the PTSD tag starts coming into play here, so prepare your reading brain accordingly. Things that skirt around panic attacks, vauge all

**8 years ago**

She had changed out Benny’s suit back into her ratty mercenary gear, and had her satchel slung over a shoulder.

“Is it time?” he had asked, ready to go retrieve his rifle.

“No, not today,” she fidgeted, “I am heading back down the highway, with Arcade. It’s a talking sort of mission, not a shoot things kind of mission”

Boone felt a cold, oily, awful pooling in his stomach, “You mean you are going to be trying to negotiate with the fucking legion again.”

She winced, “That isn’t… that’s not quite fair Boone.”

“How isn’t it? You’ve seen them. The things they have done. You think you and Dr. Gannon are just going to talk them out of invading NCR?”

“ _No._ No. I don’t,” she returned, “Okay first of all. This isn’t NCR territory. Not yet. Even if House _does_ let them walk all over the Mojave. And secondly, I know that as sure as the sun rises that someday soon, the Legion are going to try to cross the dam and no amount of talk will stop that. But wars ain’t all about killing. We’ve got the securitrons under the Fort to deal with, as long as Caesar thinks I am _helping_ him, stacking the deck in our favour is still possible.”

“And you thing you are going getting away with _helping_ them without their spies noticing?” he replied icily.

“I’m not the dumb kid you think I am. Listen I am pretty sure I know what he wants me to do next.”

“And what’s that?”

She sunk into one of the kitchen chairs, with her hands over her face and let out an exasperated groan. “He going to want me to get rid of Mr. House, since I am in an unrivaled good position to do so.”

He sighed, “And you are actually going to go through that?”

She peeked over her hands looking slightly embarrassed. “I… I might have been planning to that anyway?”

“And what? Let who fill the power vacuum? The NCR? The goddamn Legion?” he was starting to raise his voice in spite of himself.

Still vaguely pink, she gave a nervous grin, pointed both of her thumbs at herself, shrugging.

He made sure to slam the door on the way out.

Arcade was on the other side, lingering by the elevator, looking slightly ashamed to have been caught eavesdropping, “Well, that seems to have gone well,” he added cheerily.

Boone ignored the doctor, pushing past him towards the shared dormitories.

Arcade followed him, “Listen, I know you think this is not going to work, and that we should just throw our lot in with the NCR. Of course you do, you _are_ ex-NCR. But I lived with these people. I eat, breathe, and sleep with these people. I patch bullet holes in them. Freeside, West side, Goodsprings, Primm. How about Bitter Springs, how’d NCR intervention go there, Boone?”

“I think it would be in your best interest to stop talking.” He ground out through a clenched jaw.

“Have you looked at American history? Of course you haven’t. Listen in lieu of giving you a crash course on mercantilism, let me put this way. As far as the NCR is concerned, the Legion getting the Dam and it’s electricity? Very bad. The NCR get the dam and its electricity? Very very good! Maybe they will eventually get around to actually helping meet the needs of the people here, but that is _years_ away!”

Cass stuck her head, hair rumpled from sleep, out the bedroom door. “Y’all do know, that some of us like to sleep off our moonshine in peace. I’m glad y’all are so fucking passionate about wasteland politics, but by chance you could do it more quietly?” she said, before ducking her head back into the room.

Arcade took a deep breath, before continuing in a hushed voice. “We are going make a better world. For _everyone_. And I would rather die before I let the Legion take an inch past the Colorado River. And so would she. Or is _that_ what you are afraid of?”

“She is a good shot, but she is what, seventeen, nineteen years old? She is too naive and too brash, and she is just going to get hurt or worse.” Boone said, looking off to the side, like he suddenly found the wallpaper of the suite very interesting.

“She started off this whole adventure shot in the head, and dumped in a shallow grave. I am pretty sure _that_ boat has already sailed. And for god sakes, you have to start giving her more credit. She is smart, and frighteningly charismatic. She probably tones it way down when she is with you, but I have seen her talk her way into free dates with expensive prostitutes. People just give her stuff, for free, just because she asked them to all the time. People love her.”

Arcade trailed off, with a look of consternation on his face before continuing “And I am absolutely 100% not supposed to tell you this, but Benny is at the Fort, and Six wants another shot at him. Sort of a final showdown, I guess. I don’t know it is not up my alley. But if anyone can empathize with an obsessive quest for vengeance, it’s you”. He gave Boone a tired smile, “Now go apologise or something. Otherwise she will be weird and mopey about it the whole road there.”

And with that Arcade walked off to finish packing.

Boone sighed. Hating his life in Novac hadn't been fun, but at least it had been easy. These people made nothing easy. Cursing under his breath, he let himself back into the kitchen.

Six was still sitting in the chair. She had poured herself a glass of whiskey, and was staring into it, eyes distant.

He cleared his throat, “Take the new rifle.”

She looked sidelong at him with a wry smile, “I’ll take good care of it,” she promised.

He had intended that the rifle take good care of _her_ , but he absolutely wasn't gonna say it. Instead he said, “If Benny tries to cut a deal with you again, just shoot him in the kneecaps”

She half laughed, half groaned, dropping her head to her chest. “Goddammit Arcade,” still, she was grinning. “He will get his. I haven’t told him yet, but we are going on a little field trip in addition to our main mission.”

Boone raised an eyebrow.

She gave him an impish look, “The neon sign maker down the road. He needs inspiration or some junk. Gave me a camera and a list of landmarks all over the wasteland to be photographed.”

Boone wouldn't have wanted to be dragged over miles of desert for such a silly task either, “You want to play this dangerous game, trying to keep all the balls in the air. But you keep stopping every five minutes to do favours for folk. At this rate every unlucky son-of-a-bitch in Nevada is gonna want to take advantage of your kindness.”

She looked at him, meeting his gaze. She smiled, like she knew something he didn't, “Oh, I certainly hope so.”

 _People love her,_ Arcade voice echoed in his head.

"Also, I will have you know that I am an excellent juggler."  She said finishing her whiskey.

 

 **2289** :

He woke up to the sound of her throwing up in the bathroom.

His watch read 3:24pm. Late enough that he may as well wake up. The door to the bathroom was ajar, and he could make out a bare foot, jerking slightly in time with the retching.

“You alright?” he asked cautiously towards the open door.

A horrifically loud, wet, gagging noise followed by a splattering of coughs. She then sniffed, and hoarsely reply “Great.”

Okay, stupid question. Boone decided to busy himself by pouring her a glass of purified water.

The toilet flushed in the bathroom. Then the sound of the sink running. He handed her the glass of water through the gap in the door.

“Thanks,” her voice echoed from inside the bathroom, “Can you get me my toothbrush, it is the front pocket of my pack”

He retrieved the toothbrush from the overstuffed canvas pack. The pocked also contained an engraved lighter, a flint and tinder, and various coins- including several Legion denarius, a currency he had not seen in a few years. He frowned at them, before delivering the toothbrush through the door gap.

He stood awkwardly in his own living room as she brushed her teeth. He had been living in Cottonwood Cove for just over four years, and he is not sure he has had guests over once. Not that he really knows anyone well enough to invite them over. He and Cass had drinks at the saloon when she had passed through with her caravan, what? A month ago? He can probably count the conversations he has held since on one hand. That probably says something… not great about him. But, it is probably for the best that people avoid him, he wasn't exactly a people person.

Six exited the bathroom looking a bit pale, but not as terrible as she sounded.

“I crossed though a ravine a few weeks back, that had a lot of upended radioactive junk in it. I think I have some minor poisoning” she said by way of explanation. “One of the reasons I decide to swing by Vegas, is to get a decent doc to full flush out my system, instead of just trying to alleviate the symptoms with RadAway. Which, consequently there is not a hell of a lot of between here and El Paso.”

“Minor poisoning,” He repeated.

“It’s not usually _this_ bad, don’t worry ‘bout it.”, She flashed him a grin, “Hey you got anything besides beer and whiskey for breakfast?”

He grimaced.

“No worries, I kinda thought as much,” she said, already carelessly stuffing her feet into her boots. “I saw a saloon on the way in, I will head down and see if I can rustle up some brahmin steaks for us. You coming?”

He tensed up, he didn’t really care for the day crowd at the saloon. A lot of noisy folk not minding their own business. Still, he ought to-

She seemed to have read his face though, and she got that look of pity in her eyes. Maybe not pity, but a sad familiarity, “It is alright I will get the steaks to go,” and with a half-smile, she swung the screen door open and hopped out onto the path and down the path towards the middle of town.

Boone spent a quiet thirty minutes taking apart his rifle, and cleaning the dissembled parts before hearing a knock at the door. He frowned, Six had never been particularly good at respecting people’s boundaries, and it was hard to imagine her asking permission to come in. He cautiously opened the door.

The first person he saw was not Six, but Jackie Gueye— the local doctor. Boone had always felt that Jackie was not impressed with him as a person. She didn’t look impressed now, raising an immaculate dark brow in his direction.

The second person he noticed _was_ Six. He almost didn’t recognize her, standing slightly off-kilter behind Dr. Gueye. A cut somewhere in her hairline, had leaked blood in bright streaks down her face. A purple bloom was starting to appear on her slightly puffy right eye, and there was some abrasion on her right cheek.

“Okay?” he said inadequately.

“It’s not as bad as it looks?” Six said with a shrug.

“She is actually right,” Jackie interjected, “There is a lot of tiny capillaries in the forehead and scalp, and they are close to the skin so it’s easy to nick one with a pretty shallow wound. Bleeds like a motherfucker, but heals quick enough”, She  ran her hand through her own crown of dark curls for emphasis. “Alas, if we could only say the same thing for her opponents who are literally a collection of bruised ribs and broken noses, and _one_ poor man who is missing most of his front teeth.”

Six shrugged guilty, not really meeting his eyes.

Boone suppressed a grimace, “Was it anyone we know?”

“Nah just some two-bit Caravaneers hawking playing cards and brahmnin hides. Nothing we can’t get for cheaper from Cassidy Caravans, a business relationship that I think _you_ had some hand in Boone, which is the one of two reasons I am not throwing _you_ and your guest under the metaphorical bus right now.”

“Thank you, Dr. Gueye,” Boone said

“The other reason being they thought they recognized _you_ ,” Jackie interjected rounding on Six again. “That you used to be some kind of big-wig. And I think _I_ might recognize you too. Who are you to Boone?

“Nothing, I did a favor for Boone way back, but I ain’t anyone worth remembering.” Six replied nonchalantly, stuffing her hands in her pocket.

“Oh I think you did favors for more than just Boone, but If you want to be _nobody_ than I guess I have to respect that, as long as you aren’t causing any more trouble in my town” And with that Jackie turned on her heel and started striding away, back towards the center of town.

Six stepped through the door that Boone was still holding open. He let it close behind her softly. They stood in the entryway. Six didn’t move, didn’t look at him, just looking somewhere in the distance ahead of her.

She said something in a small cracked voice that Boone couldn’t quite make out. “What?” he said gently as he could.

Her eyes slammed shut, and her face scrunched up as if she was in pain. When she spoke, it was still in that creaking, breaking voice, like her vocal cords where full of sand. “I said, If I wasn’t for me there wouldn’t even be a town.”

“I know.”

“I killed every single Legionary that had infested this place. ”

“I know”

“I killed them, and emptied their pockets for money and weapons, and then I dragged their bodies into the river.”

Boone said nothing.

“I killed them so there could be a town again. If it wasn’t for me there wouldn’t even be a town.”

“I know. I was there too,” Boone said putting his hand on her shoulders attempting to guide her towards the couch. “Sit”

He got a washcloth and some bandages and laid them out on the coffee table in front of her, as he sat in the opposite chair. Her eyes were still looking past him at the empty air in front of the window.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing. It was stupid,”

He frowned. He snapped his fingers in front of himself trying to redirect her attention back to the present. She pulled back into the fabric of the chair with an exaggerated startle reflex, her eyes snapping to him, and locking her eyes to his own with almost a corresponding snap. She frowned at his still raised hand.

He gesture towards the cloth and dressing on the table. “Tell me what happened,”

“Nothing, just these guys where already setting me on edge. Being creeps to the waitresses. Thought they knew who I was, recognised my handguns, and there were ex-Omerta so of course they had a fucking problem with me.”

Boone noticed for the first time that she had her holster strapped around her waist.

“I coulda shot them,” she said, “It’d have been easy.”

“Well I am glad you didn’t start shooting townsfolk. I still have to live here you know.”

Her eyes suddenly became sharp and focused, and she gave him a look. “Are you seriously criticising _me_ for getting rough with the local color, because as I recall you contracted me to help you kill someone in Novac _half an hour_ after we first met.”

He shrugged trying to suppress the hint of a smile.

“Oh. Oh my god. Boone. _Boone._ Did you just joke with me? Dude, this is not best time, but on the other hand I have never seen you _actually_ try to be funny, it’s kind of amazing.”

He looked down at his own lap self-consciously. “I guess it's been seven years. It couldn’t all be brooding, and navel gazing.” He said dryly.

She laughed into her hands, further smearing blood over her face. “Really though. I don’t want you to have beef with your retirement community here. I shouldn’t have punched those guys.”

Boone gently took one of her hands, bringing it away from her face, and pressed the antiseptic soaked cloth into her palm. “I am sure you had a good reason to punch them. You usually do. Looks like they got a few of their own in too. Shit, where they aiming for your face specifically?”

“What? Oh, no.” She said, closing her fingers around the cloth. “They were pretty sloppy.”

“They didn’t get any body shots in?”

“I guess I dropped my guard. Veronica always did tell me to not to, you know, drop my fists in hand-to-hand combat. I should have listened better,” with a short unsteady exhale she started to wipe the blood off her face.

“Well. I am sure you did the right thing.”

“Good, cause I am not.”

He looked up at her sharply. She met his eyes over the washcloth.

“Look, I know you have always thought of good and evil like a binary. Black or white. I was always influenced by that.”

Boone snorted thinking back to all times she took Gannon’s side, shades of grey, trying to make everyone happy. “Hardly.”

“ _Boone_ , there is, like, a whole three days of my life that I can remember _not_ knowing you.” She rolled her eyes, running the now red tinted cloth along her jawline, “Shut up, and accept that you have been influential in my life.”

She paused, letting the cloth and her hands fall to her lap. “I been thinking about things out there. I have seen things. I been thinking about what we did. What _I_ did.  And about Benny. Benny wanted the same things as I did you know, though he was dumb as a rock sometimes.”

“He tried to kill you twice. Hell, he damn near did it the first time.”

“I know,”

“He shot you in the head with a 9mm”

“I know. But we've shot a lot of people. Raiders, junkies, I was literally asked by Yes-Man to make a judgement about which lives in New Vegas had value and which didn’t.”

Boone gave a short angry sigh. “So if you could do again, you’d let the raiders, or the weirdo cannibals in the Ultra-Luxe off the hook?”

 “No. _No._ Yes? Maybe?” She groaned.

“You have blood on your hands”

She raised an eyebrow, “Calm down Macbeth, that is a bit of a heavy handed metaphor there.”

“No, I mean your knuckles, they are bloody,” he said gently, eyeing the rust colored stains with discomfort.

She looked at her hands in dull surprise, “Oh.”

She scrubbed at them idly, “It’s just… There is a lot of good people in Nevada. I feel like I robbed them of their chance to take back this country themselves, by just stepping in and trying to ham-handedly fix everything. It’s what I always hated the NCR for doing, and I can’t say as I did much better.”

“You saved who you could, and tried to fix the rest. Sounds like doing good in my book.”

Her green eyes slid upwards to meet his again, “I couldn’t fix you.”

Boone frowned, taken by surprise. He meant to say something about that first night when she had helped find who sold out his wife, or Bitter Springs. But instead it came out. “Who asked you to?” Sharp, and fine edged, “It’s my business.”

“I know… But you are still… You never… Boone, when I left I didn’t tell you because--”

“Six.”

 “I looked for her belongings, you know, when I was going through Legion stuff, in their camps and up and down their trade roads. You never described much about Carla so I didn’t have much to go on. But I thought maybe a locket, or a ring—.”

“It’s fine.” He said, feeling the old ache tug at his heart.

“I know but, I wanted something to bring back to you.”

“Six, I have long come to terms with her being dead. She was never suited for the roughness of life in this desert. Maybe there is a better place she went to. Maybe not.” he cleared his throat. ”What I have to with is my actions, and what happened after.”

She stood up, and walked over a dusty window, tapping her fingers along the sill, "Life has a way of punishing you for the mistakes you make,” she said softly.

“Something like that.”

She looked back in his direction, but not directly at him, frowning like was he some object too bright, something painful to stare at. He felt angry, and sad, and very tired all at the same time. He couldn’t fix her either. She had always she to be the solid one, shiny and unbent like a new bottlecap.

“I am sorry I didn’t actually get us any food,” she sighed.

“It’s alright”

“Okay.”

“I can go down to the Biak’s store and get something simple. You should lay down. Or something”

“Okay.”

 

If the Biaks had heard about the incident at the saloon, they were polite enough not to mention it while he bought some caravan lunches.

When he got back to the house it was silent once again. The living area was empty, which he hoped meant that she had taken his advice and lain down.

He took a step forward and heard the gritty sound of glass. He looked down the jagged starburst of shards under his boot. The centuries old faded Cottonwood Resort logo peered up from one of the pieces. One of his drinking glasses then. The pool of water surrounded the shards seemed to confirm this.

A couple steps further and he see the second one, equally shattered, by the counter. Like the other one in a pool of water, looks dropped not thrown.

Boone's hand twitched, yearning for the solid steel stock of his rifle. A million possibilities ran across his mind, and he has the push the urge to go into soldier mode down. The war is over. The war is over. No enemies here. Just townsfolk. She is probably just laying down.

He takes a breath, pushing on into his room.

She was laying in one corner of the bed close to the wall, folded in on herself like the origami napkins at the Ultra-luxe. Knees to chest, head tucked into the freckled curve of her arms. The soft whisper of shallow breathing filled the room.

“Are you okay?” he tried.

“I am fine,” a strained un-fine sounding voice, came muffled from behind her arms.

“I got some food.”

“Great.”

“Are you,” he paused, “Can you get up?”

“Nope.”

He shift his weight to lean against the door frame, “That doesn't sound very okay.”

She lifted her head out of its nest of arms, and peered at him, with pupils blown wide, weakly smiling. “It’s cool, it’s cool. It will pass. I will get up just as soon as my heart slows down, and my bones stop feeling like they want to shake out of my skin.”

“Is that how the glasses broke?”

She shivered, pulling his ratty quilt toward her, “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I will totally pay you back somehow. I thought a drink of water would help, but my hands decided they didn’t want to be team players.”

They both looked at her hands, which vibrated with a resting tremor against the blanket, at the same time. She folded her arms, tucking her hands into her sides.

Boone unconsciously mimicked her, “Has… this been happening a lot?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

The silence hung thick for about a minute before she broke it. “I am sorry I broke your glass”

“It’s fine”

Another silence.

“Do you want me to bring the water here?” he said.

“That would be cool.”

“Lunch?”

“What?”

“Do you want me to bring the lunch too?”

“Oh, Nah. My appetite seems to have fucked off with my ability to keep my life shit together.”

Boone came back with the water, his lunch, and Six’s pistols.

“Um?” she raised an eyebrow, as she eased herself into a seated position.

“You don’t do maintenance on these often enough. It’s best for the lifespan of the gun, and your fingers if you clean them once a week,” he said, extending the hand with the mug of water toward her.

She accepted the glass, hands clamping around it like a vice, “Okay?”

He pulled up a chair beside the bed, resting the iguana sandwich on the armrest. He sat down, propping his feet against on the bed. He unloaded the gun, placing the magazine of Maria beside the sandwich and began taking the gun apart to clean it.

Six watched the methodical motions of her silvery gun being reduced to its base parts.

“I am sorry about your glass.”

“I said it was fine.”

“I am sorry I punched those folks in town.”

“That’s fine too.”

She seem to relax, the tightness in her muscles loosening a notch. “It… It’s been a trying few months”

He gave a soft snort, “It’s been a trying eight years”

Her eyes crinkled in a smile over the brim of the mug, “You ain’t wrong.”

He kept his eyes on the gun, and carefully tried a question, “What happened in Arizona, Six?”

She kept her eyes on her glass of water, “A lot of stuff. I tried to fix things”

“Did it work?”

“Did _I_ fix things? Not really. Yet I guess I they _are_ fixed now, all the same,” she said cryptically, setting her glass down, and laying down again.

He didn’t press her. Just kept wiping and oiling the parts of the 9mm gun on his lap. She watched him with soft drowsy eyes, till eventually she slipped into a light restless sleep.

He let himself look, really look at her then, trying to untangle the ratty mess of feelings that seem to have formed in his chest. Her dark lashes fluttered on her sunburnt cheeks. Dreaming then. Her long browned limbs still tucked into her body, making a lanky frame look oddly small. A small white scar from the gun he was now cleaning, ran along her temple into her dark hair.

It was still impossible. Even now. Especially now. To look at Six and not see a faint echo of Carla.

Carla spent some difficult days curled on herself too. Sometimes she just laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. She would turn the radio louder and louder to try and drown out the sounds of the neighbours. Boone knew she had already made up her mind against the people of Novac, and their small, noisy claustrophobic ways, and felt sure it was going to be the death of their time here. What an awful twist of karma, how literally that prediction turned out.

Black was black, and white was white for Carla. Forgiveness was just an invitation for sorrow in the wasteland. Boone can understand it. Life is easier if you can just believe that the NCR are the good guys and Caesar’s Legion and the raiders, and the warring tribes are the bad guys. Boone just wish he could believe his own heart to be white, but blood is a hard stain to wash. Carla didn’t tell him that he did the right thing, but she cupped his large hands in her small ones, and told him that it  would all work out in the end.

Carla was made of the neon glow of Vegas, a night with a rare Nevada rain where the lights lit up the falling water like a phosphorus missile attack, and lightning tore through the sky violently trying to reach The Lucky 38. Fresh spiced apple pie, blues music, and a collection of books passed down from her parents, Shakespeare and the like, stuff that Boone had never had any patience for. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep,” she had whispered in his ear, as they lay in the folds of the passably clean sheets of The Tops, thoroughly spent after celebrating their honeymoon to its fullest extent.

“What does that mean” he asked gruffly but fondly.

Carla had sat up a bit and stretched, pretty little body shifting beneath the faded satin of her nightdress. “I’m not sure really. Why don’t you take me to California, where I can go to school and then I could tell you what every fancy word means?”

Boone doesn’t see the point in digging through the words of an old dead guy. That stuff is in the past and the past is something post-apocalyptic America has too much of. The songs of old dead guys, and the buildings they built, and the fucking Dam. Their present is the world of a dead history that they have yet to rise above. Even the Cram he was served in the NCR when fresh food was hard to come by was canned by some poor fucker 200 years ago. The past was too much with them as it was.

They didn’t end up in California, of course

 

The past is too much with Boone lately.

Six had loved Novac.  Six had shown up with no past.

Six was the sharp taste of cold water drunk out of a tin can, she is the sun rising over red rocks and sand at five in the morning. She was the snap of a the tumblers in a locked door slotting into place, and the hollow thump of a baseball bat hitting the skull of a feral ghoul perfectly, the smell of gunpowder, dried chilli peppers roasted black over the fire. She was eyes ever looking forward, looking ahead to the glow of the Strip, growing brighter and closer every day.

To be honest she was even more handsome she had been seven years ago. With round strong arms and legs, and a fullness to her face, and a self-assurance to her movements.

Most of the time.

He noticed that her hands had tiny fresh cuts, where she had probably tried to pick up the broken glass.

He sighed, trying to shove all thoughts about the last ten years, about their younger, dumber selves, to the back of mind and focus on the guns.

After a time, he noticed that the sun was hanging low in the sky. He placed the guns and their ammo on the bedside table.

If he didn’t get moving the day sniper would wonder what was keeping him.

As he stood up, a hand shot out from closing around his wrist with surprising force. “Stay,” barely more than a whisper.

“I can’t. I have work,” he forced the words around the sudden lump in his throat.

“Oh. Okay,” The grip on his hand loosened, but didn’t let go. “I am leaving.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“No, probably tonight.”

“Are you going to say goodbye, on your way out?”

She gave him a look. “Duh.”

He gave her a look back.

She exhaled loudly, “Okay, so _maybe_ I don’t have the best track record there.”

 

Later, when the moon is well up, and Boone was settled into the snipers nest, with an idle barrel pointed east, he gave a rare thought to the future. He wondered if she was going to be gone for years again.  Wondered if next time he heard of her she’d have ended up dead in some far off land. He could say something. Best not to though. She was always on her way to somewhere, helping folk.  Didn’t need him dragging behind like an anchor in the sand.  Whatever happened in Arizona wasn’t for him to know apparently, and maybe just as well, as the only thing that made him any more together as a person than her was time.

She had better people than him waiting in Vegas.

Up the hill he heard a scuttle in the dry grass. He turned around to aim his gun, at what appeared to be a gecko, but before he could even flick the safety off, the mutated reptile’s head exploded with the force of a hollow point .308 round.

He looked back down the hill. Six stood, in full desert ranger gear. Unmarked chest armour, and a brown duster, with a red 1st Recon beret perched on her head. She gave a jaunty wave as she jogged towards him.

He was saved the trouble of deciding what to say, by her pulling him into an embrace. He instinctively flinched, but forced himself to relax into the hug. With Carla. He had always been able to rest his cheek on top of her head, but Six was too tall, and her face was too close. They were both still carrying rifles.

She pulled away first, looking down and smiling to herself.

“You feeling better?” He asked.

She nodded, “Yeah. I told you it would pass.”

“Good.”

“Yup.”

There was a quiet moment. Boone idly noticed that the gecko’s body had skidded down the hill, and had come to rest against the wall of the nest.

She shouldered her rifle. “So I will see you when I see you?”

“You know where to find me.” He replied gruffly.

“Yeah. I know. I have to go, there is something I have to find out.”

“What?”

She was already heading up the path, to the amber glow of light pollution that served as a lodestar for New Vegas. She looked back at him. “I have to find out if it is _really_ radiation poisoning or not.”

 

**Seven years ago**

They came back at dawn. When no one but Raul and Boone was awake. Rex bounded out of the elevator first, wagging his tail at Boone before disappearing into the kitchen in search of his food dish. A tired and battered Six and Arcade.

“I need to take a hot bath. For a week preferably.” Arcade said, looking dead on his feet.

“If you aren’t done in an hour, I am getting in that tub. Whether _you_ are out are not,” Six yawned.

“Ugh,” was all Arcade managed before trailing off into the bathroom.

Six collapsed in the chair beside him, letting her pack and guns fall in a heap on the ground.

“Did you killed Benny?” he asked.

She looked up the ceiling, “I did. In the arena no less, gender restrictions be damned.”

“How was it?”

She frowned then. A storm seeming to pass over her face. “Easy. It was easy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 17-19 is the age range I put Six at,because I figure without her memory Dr. Arcade and Usanagi would just be making education guesses based on her wisdom teeth and X-rays. Carla is flippantly quoting the Tempest. I like to think that the NCR in California is come far enough along, that Berkeley has re-opened, albeit in a more primitive form.


End file.
